Only Legacies Stay Eternal
by Ptolemis
Summary: The Seviskian Empire is hunting down the descendants of a group of rebels from hundreds of years ago. Among the victims is Chase Fischer, an ambitious young Illusionist. Along with his companions, he seeks to strike back.
1. The Illusionist

The boy's eyes glowed blue. It was a spectral blue, a glowing blue, the kind of blue that sparked flames and rode lightning. The abandoned town hall around him lit up in response, with a dim tinge of illuminated magic. The entire entrance hall was in a state of utter disarray. The room was symmetrical, a reception desk at the centre, and two curving stairways first heading away from each other before leaning towards the middle, leading to the second floor. Various wooden doors lined the walls to the boy's sides. They were decorated, ornately crafted, with different paintings and frescos hung on their hooks.

The boy, in his flowing blue hooded robes and holding his long gnarled wooden staff, sifted through the wreckage and debris on the floor as he scanned the room, blue light filling his line of vision as he moved his head. Bricks and mortar were pushed aside as he continued on forward, opening door after door, lingering only for a few moments to survey the room before pressing on.

He opened a door, this one leading to a much bigger room than the rest. Judging by the lines of dusty shelves and heaps of torn and tattered books and scrolls on the carpeted floor, it must have been the library. Slowly but surely, he watched his step as he entered the room, circling it, searching it, staff brushing away the debris as he did.

A steady stream of water drops trickled from a crack in the ceiling. The books directly underneath were wet, but still intact. It couldn't have been too long since this building was sacked. With a firmer resolve about him, the boy sifted through the wreckage.

Underneath a book he pushed away, the boy found a thin pool of blood. It was fresh; the carpet hadn't completely absorbed it just yet. He pushed away more books, then more, until he found a tiny, almost imperceptible trail of blood droplets smaller than a man's little fingernail leading to a wooden bookshelf. It was tall, about six or seven rows high, but the wood was rotten and aged.

Slowly, he lifted his gnarled, wooden staff. He carefully placed the blunted end on what appeared to be an especially rotten part of the shelf, whispered a word, and pushed. The shelf splintered open, cracking, like an egg shell over a kitchen bowl. With the gnarled end of his staff this time, the boy hooked his arcane focus onto the shards of wood hanging onto the shelf, picking at it, until he created a hole just big enough for him to fit through.

He stooped low, bringing his legs over the hole with his back bent, and he stepped through the little passageway he created, careful not to have his rucksack or water skin catch on the exposed wooden crags.

The boy was in a cave now, the air frigid and the floor extremely slick and damp. Encased in blue light, the cave's uneven stony walls jagged and jut out of the sides, forcing him to crouch and stoop and duck to make his way. Diluted with residual cave water and puddles on the floor, the boy kept a keen eye for even the faintest traces of blood, his only trail and his only clue.

After a time, he found himself at a fork in the cave passages. The boy uncorked his water skin to take a swig of lukewarm, tepid water, then ducked down to examine the trail. Here, the _thing_ must have lingered awhile, likely unsure of which direction to head. He made a few ways down left, but then must have changed his mind and walked back to the fork, before heading to the right. The cave was getting dark now, it must have been likely holding on the cave walls, grasping for a sense of direction.

He nodded to himself, assuring himself. The fire in his heart burned bright, affirming his determination. He gripped onto his staff that much tighter, and the blue light projecting from his eyes intensified. The cramped cave passageway was swathed in light as bright as a city at dawn.

Making his way down the passages, he could feel the air shift and strengthen. An opening of sorts must be coming up, a clearing perhaps, maybe even an exit. Before turning the corner, he grabbed a small stone, held it open in his left hand, and touched it with the gnarled end of his staff. The stone glowed a bright blue. He threw it around the corner blindly, waited for a moment or two, then popped his head over the side, staff at the ready.

There he was.

Dagon was bloodied, his suit and vest in shredded rags covering him as he laid down on the cave floor, slightly propped up against a small boulder. Overhead, a thin crevice in the ceiling allowed for gentle moonlight to shine through into the cave, a dim mixture of a yellow wash with a hint of night blue. The trail of blood ended just by the creature, who was struggling to breathe, his chest heaving up and down, gasping for air.

He spoke with a feeble wheeze, "Chase Fischer…"

"Where are they?" Chase pointed his staff at the bleeding, pale creature. "Tell me where they are!"

"If you think-," Dagon had started, before the boy rushed over and had him by the collar of his ruined shirt in one hand and a gnarled wooden staff pointblank towards his head with the other.

"If I think what? If I think that I can scare you into telling me where my friends are by threatening to kill you? No, Dagon. I know better than that. You're dying. Look at you. Look at all the blood you've lost. You're dying. You don't need to be scared of death," Chase stopped for a breath, then through gritted teeth, let out, "You're dying, but that doesn't mean I can't make it longer. Prolong it for hours. Mend your wounds only to open them again. You're as good as gone, Dagon, but you can make it faster if you tell me where they are."

The creature chuckled in the boy's arms. "You're useless, Chase. Do you think you're of any help to your friends? You have a keen eye, boy, I've seen that in you. You understand details, you understand people. The world even, to an extent."

Chase's staff glowed brighter and brighter, and his brows furrowed even more in intense concentration. "You're going to have to start talking…"

The creature ignored him, almost as if the boy hadn't spoken at all. "You understand me as well, of course. Some would even venture to say that you're obsessed with me! Is it true, Chase? Are you obsessed with me? Have you been tracking me for the past six months of your ephemeral human life?"

"And more than that," Chase responded, "I've done more than that - I've tracked you! I've done what no one else could. I have you in my arms! My staff pointed right at your heart, your bloody, dying heart. A thousand years of sin and villainy, Dagon, but it ends now."

"Tell me then, boy, if you know what I am, what makes you think your friends are still alive?"

Chase's jaw slacked a tiny fraction. Could it be true?

"That's your flaw, boy, that's what makes you weak. You are idealistic. You can't accept the truth. You'll weave a web of illusions and stories just to save you from living in reality."

With a short burst of blue translucent light and energy, Chase picked up the creature who must have weighed at least twice that of himself, and threw him to the cave wall. "Liar! Enough!" He stomped his boots on the damp, bloody floor as he walked over to the creature, and threw a hefty left cross, catching the creature straight in the jaw.

Dagon continued, "You're observant, but what use is that if you can't handle the facts you're given? If you can't discern reality for what it is, if you substitute your own tales and narratives and force them to fit what you can't accept?" His voice rumbled and grunted, a gruff baritone that filled the cave with ease.

The creature was slumped against the cave wall, leaning on the stone that he had stained with red to keep himself from keeling over. Chase's boot connected with the creature's neck, and he fell in a heap onto the wet ground.

"And another, boy, another thing that keeps you from being great-"

The boy picked him up by the neck, holding the creature upright so he could hold his staff directly underneath its chin. The staff began to glow blue, but a different shade of blue this time, a shade of blue with more malice, with crueler intentions, the kind of harsh blue that colored the sea in an angry storm or the kind of blue that would pool up in a vial of snake venom. The air grew hotter now, and the staff vibrated intensely in the boy's hands.

"-you lack mindfulness!" Dagon growled. "You observe what you want to observe, but the rest of the world is lost on you."

Chase ground his teeth in immense concentration. "That doesn't matter now. I see you. I observe you. And I see that you're about to die."

"Answer one last thing for me then, boy, take my last words."

"What is it, demon? Spit it out, and be done with it."

Dagon's voice was smoother now, sharp and confident, the gravel gone and replaced with syrup. "Do demons bleed?"

It took a moment for Chase to comprehend, then he remembered his studies and his arcana. Around him, he discerned the reality of the cave, of his surroundings, of the blood trail that had led him here. Reeling, he let go of Dagon's collar, as he watched the streaks of blood and smears of scales across his hands fade slowly, leaving behind nothing. His hands were clean. The cave floors, the walls, everything was spotless. Dagon was clean, unbloodied.

The creature stood up, to its full humanoid height. He towered over the boy, easily staggering at a height that would be taller for most doorframes. Pure, animal muscle ripped through the creature's pale skin, and long, wicked fangs sprouted from its mouth. Curled horns grew out of the creature's raven black hair.

"Do I bleed?" Dagon repeated. With a great force, the demon brought down a clawed fist at the ground where Chase had just been, goring thick black claws into the stone, leaving behind a sizable crater. With his talons planted in the ground, Dagon pulled at the ground, launching himself at the boy.

Chase, waved his hand reflexively, a wave of thin blue translucent lights following his fingertips, and he blinked out of existence.

Dagon crashed into the stone wall with a thunderous crunch of muscle and sinew and stone. With a slight fizzle and crackle, Chase reappeared again out of the aether, already running for the exit where had had entered from. Dagon roared, the howl thundering throughout the cave, echoing within every crevice. It was bloodcurdling battlecry, a boom that could shake men off their feet.

Keeping up his pace, Chase dipped and swerved, jumping over obstacle after obstacle. When the stone walls ahead seemed to form in a way that would slow him down too much, he would point his staff ahead of him, blink and disappear in a small cloud of blue energy, and reappear with a soft crackle ahead of the rock formation. Keeping up on the boy's heels, Dagon crashed and pummeled through the stone, barely slowed even by the boulders.

In a booming, deafening roar, Dagon bellowed out, taunting the boy, "Am I dying now, boy? Are you going to end it now? Answer me!" Over his shoulder, the sound of the demon crashing and obliterating stalagmite after stalactite thundered and echoed.

Overhead, the cave itself played slave to the demon's wicked battlecries and taunts, rocks and debris showering from the ceiling. Chase aimed his staff ahead, and in a display of iridescent blue energy, blasted a hole through the wooden shelf that he had shimmied through. Once in the library, he spared a moment to look back, then with the energy emanating from his staff, flung bookshelf after bookshelf at the breach that he had escaped from. He piled the wooden barriers on the breach until he couldn't feel the magic flowing through his veins anymore, until his staff had fizzled out of bright blue energy. He couldn't even see the breach now. He had piled tons and tons of wood over the passageway.

Chase stopped to catch his breath. Hands on his knees, a bead of sweat dribbled down from his forehead, downwards to his thin, tanned nose, and dropped onto the floor. Mentally, he counted down until Dagon would reach the barrier. Surely he wouldn't be able to find a way through?

A thud, muffled at first. Then another, and another.

The boy straightened himself. He raised his staff yet again, and began channeling a spell, casting a weave of tendrils and ropes and strings, faint blue energy struggling to keep the mass of wood and planks together over the breach. His robes flew wildly behind him, caught in the crosswind of power between Dagon's battering against the breach and Chase's abjuration over the barrier. With each booming strike against the barricade, the building shook, loosening dust and fine debris that had been resting in the floorboards overhead. Chase inhaled a bit of particulate and coughed. His concentration over the barricade was wavering. Fatigue was having its say.

Suddenly, the battering ceased. Chase's defenses sparked, faltering, and the boy was perplexed. _Any time now, Dagon's going to come crashing into my blockade!_ the boy thought, _I have to keep the wall up. I can't let it go!_

Repositioning himself to find his proper form, toes pointed and shoulders square, Chase structured his defenses once again.

A moment passed, then another. The sweat was pouring out of the boy's forehead now, and his hair was wet with perspiration. Where was the demon? Why wasn't he poundi-

The blockade exploded in an eruption of splinters and wreckage and shards of wood flying in every direction. Chase wasn't ready; he couldn't sustain holding down the barricade over such a long period of time. A long, thin spike of wooden shrapnel came flying towards him. He dropped to the floor, but it was too late, and the spike impaled Calum through his left thigh. He grunted in shock, but he couldn't feel the pain. He couldn't feel the spike. The boy collapsed, his left leg kneeling, forcing him into a genuflect.

Dagon boomed, "Where are you, boy? You've studied the planes of death - come and see them for yourself!"

Chase was on the floor, a steady supply of blood being lost through his left leg, and he felt an overwhelming sense of dread. The demon was so big. So powerful. He was only a boy with a spike through his leg.

"There you are, boy!" Dagon shrieked, locking eyes with Chase. "You fool!" the demon cried, as it leapt, its thick muscly legs bending and launching itself forward in a leap over ten meters long, covering half the large room. He landed right next to Chase.

He blinked in a puff of barely visible blue energy.

Chase reappeared, giving himself barely a split second to survey his surroundings. He was in the main entrance hall again. He Blinked yet again, and found himself at the top of the staircase.

Hobbling on one leg, Chase used his staff as a walking implement to trudge through the debris. What should he be looking for? What could possibly help? He didn't have much time. Dagon would be stomping after him soon enough.

He peeked into one room. It was a meeting room, ordinary enough. A table in the centre, chairs strewn around fallen over, all over the room. To one side, however, three suits of armor stood tall. One began to move, animated, halberd at the ready. Its eyes glowed amber. Chase snapped his fingers and whispered, "Silence," emitting a spark of light from his staff before the suit of armor collapsed onto the floor, plain hunks of metal and iron.

With a pronounced limp, he made his way into the next room. The kitchen, now, countertops and stoves in the centre of the room. Canisters of furnace fuel were stored in a cabinet to the far end of the room, door broken and dismantled. One side of the room, a window overlooking the River Mazares and a faucet underneath. Nearby was a sizable hole through the floorboards, and a cabinet full of kitchen implements.

Dagon was stomping through the staircase, making his way for Chase, working off the scent of his blood It was so close now. The hair on the back of the boy's neck would have stood if they weren't slicked with sweat. He made his way for the kitchen implements, his leg oozing with scarlet and crimson around the spike that had impaled his thigh. Maybe he could get a knife. A blade. Anything?

Chase was leaning against the cabinet when Dagon came, his left hand clutching a cleaver and his right hand feebly holding onto his dimly lit staff. The energy emanating off the gnarled arcane focus wasn't even blue anymore. "Stay back, Dagon!"

Dagon bellowed with a deep, hearty, sinister laugh. It was earthy, gravelly, like the earth's plates themselves were shifting unsteadily. "Do you think me a fool, boy?" The demon sauntered slowly towards the boy, rubbing talon against talon as he walked. "That I could fall for your little trick? My own illusion, even?" As if to mock the boy, Dagon crouched low, to keep his eyes level with Calum's. "Do you think I can't see through this little parlor trick of yours, you little copycat?"

"Maybe not," Chase replied. He dispelled the illusion, and the blood trail he had left behind vanished along with the spike that had been driven through his thigh.

"You are going to die now," Dagon licked his fangs as he taunted Chase. "You are going to die thinking that you were clever, that you had me dying in your arms and that you had tricked me. You are going to die now knowing how wrong you were."

"Dagon, before I go," Chase breathed in and out with a heavy heart, "can you answer one thing for me? Just one thing, for a lost soul with no friends and everything taken away from him?"

"And what would that be, boy?"

"Are you watching closely?"

The illusory floorboards underneath the demon gave away just as the Illusionist kicked off the demon with both legs, sending Dagon to the floors below and Chase sailing through the window overlooking the River Mazares. Mid-air, he snapped his fingers, sending a spark of blue flame into the kitchen, igniting canister after canister of potent furnace fuel and setting the entire wooden building ablaze. The resounding boom was massive. Across the street, decrepit windows shattered from the immense level of force.

Chase crashed into the river neck-first. As soon as he made contact with the water, his staff let go of its energy completely, powering down, and his eyes dimmed and lowered down until they were normal again, his pupils visible. He blacked out, and the current carried the Illusionist away.


	2. Once Again, with Feeling

We peer into a room dimly lit by the flame of a blue torch and the flickering embers of an old man's cigar. He sits on a cushioned velvet chair with a table next to him bearing an ash plate and a small glass filled with a red liquid. He is reading from sheets of parchment, holding them apart. The ink is still wet.

We see another man, a younger one, hunched forward, with a quill in his hands and a set of inkwells by his feet. Two are already empty. He taps his fingers on his knee idly, but he keeps focused on the reaction of the elder, as if eager to receive comment and criticism.

Around the room, we see nothing else. It is dark, an impenetrable, opaque sheet of black. We see nothing but the elder, the writer, and parchment.

The elder offers the parchment back to the younger and says, "This isn't bad. But that wasn't the beginning."

The younger man asks, "You want me to go even further back then?"

"We have all the time in the world."

"Okay," the younger produces another slip of parchment from a pack beneath his stool and dips his quill into one of the many inkwells. "Tell me again, from the beginning, Chase."

"Once again," Chase agrees, "with feeling."


	3. Ardoz

Time functions differently inside an Ardoz Academy classroom.

My eyelids flickered and fluttered under the weight of my own fatigue. I had chosen my seat by the window, as I always had at the time, and for whatever reason, the sun refused to continue its arc over the city of Ardoz. I dipped a quill and even without its lid, my inkwell had not gone dry or congealed whatsoever.

In front of the class of twenty young students in the Academy of Ardoz, the Professor Emeritus rambled on about illusions and how to discern whether or not an object is real. It had been hours since class started, surely, and I still couldn't discern the point of what the professor had sought to prove - he had gone on in circles on the importance of knowing the difference, but not on how exactly to do so.

The professor dismissed the class and so I stood up to collect my overcoat from the rack on the wall.

A curious piece of expensive looking parchment tumbled out of its pockets and onto the floor. I stooped low to retrieve it. The parchment was new and rolled up neatly into a cylinder; I kept all of my parchment in my messenger's bag, and this definitely wasn't one of mine. I unrolled the parchment and found scrawled writing which read, "More to come. Danger close. Keep safe."

I raised an eyebrow and scanned the classroom. The professor was packing his materials into a leather bag, similar to his own. Some of my classmates were gossiping and talking about plans to drink and to celebrate a lifeday. Ivy, my personal interest at the time, stood by the window, something having evidently caught her eye. Nobody in the room seemed to be interested in his reaction to the peculiar piece of parchment that had been stuffed into my overcoat's pocket. I figured it must have been some sort of odd joke.

I drew the overcoat over my back and stuffed the message back into my pocket. The sun was nearing its resting position over the horizon, and I wanted nothing more than to buy a copy of the day's Ardoz Tattler, find a quaint, out-of-the-way tavern to recline in, and drink away the day.

The Ardoz Tattler was by no means the biggest publication in Ardoz, nor was it the most prestigious. It didn't sell as much as the Standard or print out as many stories as the Jatta Standard, but I had bought an issue every single week for the past two years that he had spent in the city because the Tattler had a whole section devoted to adventuring guilds. The Tattled covered the state-run guilds of Parrin's Kingshill and Norderland's Frostgreaves, the roving religious groups of Zealton Haka and the Inquisitors, and the mercenaries of Golden Shield and Risk & Sons. The Tattler held their own exclusive stories, opinion pieces, and even inside interviews with adventurers themselves - and at only a Civic and fifty Spurs for an issue.

Ivy approached me while I was fiddling with the buttons on my overcoat.

"Are you coming later?" she asked.

I assumed she was referring to the lifeday of one of his classmates. "I'd love to, but I have plans, actually." In reality, of couse, I hadn't been invited to begin with.

"Oh," she seemed taken aback. "What do you have planned?"

"The river," I replied off the cuff. The answer surprised even myself.

"The river?"

"Yeah, I figured I'd take a quick row with some friends over the Mazares. Enjoy the night, you know?"

"I didn't know you row."

"It's worth learning."

"I see." Ivy paused. "Maybe next time, then?" She headed for the door, canvas bag slung over her back, when I called after her.

"Maybe I can teach you some time!"

"Excuse me?"

"Rowing," I said, "maybe we can go rowing sometime?" I winced. What was I thinking?

"Sure." Ivy smiled. "Maybe we can row sometime."

She turned and left the classroom. I was left biting my index finger in between my lips. Great, I thought. Now I have to learn how to row.

At the same time, Ivy didn't seem to be averse to spending time with me outside of the classroom. That was a big positive to take from the day at least.

The Academy of Ardoz housed two floors, the ground floor for its galleries and symposium rooms and the second for its classrooms and faculty. I battled a throng of departing students and professors making their way down to the ground floor - all I wanted was peace and quiet and light literature at his leisure. Aside from my class on the arcane, the Academy had courses on history, religion, and medicine, among many other sciences and arts. It was a wonder that the Academy could fit as many courses and lessons as it did on a sidestreet in Central Ardoz as it did in the first place.

While overcrowded, the Academy was gorgeous to say the least. The upside of offering from arts to architecture was that the Academy had astounding alumni to draw talent from long after they had graduated. It's different now, I'm sure, but back in the day, the pure pearl white marble floor gleamed with intricate plaster trim connecting it to the walls. There were these two statues by the entrance, but they hung up from the sides, suspended by metal rods in a way that seemed to defy the laws of nature. I wasn't a student of the sciences, so I don't know how they kept them up, and I wasn't a student of the arts, so I don't know how they chipped at a marble block to produce such breathtaking, such perfect statues, but I knew enough to appreciate them.

The left held Virtue. She was an angel, the marble representing every small powdered detailed of down on her wings, and she carried a shield in one hand as the other gestured upward to the heavens with an open, welcoming palm.

The right held Excellence. He was a Winged Victory, sleek armor from head to toe, and a simple but robust sword in one hand and a pointed finger to the earth in his other.

Virtue and Excellence. They used to say that there are only two kinds of classes in the Academy of Ardoz - the kind that teaches you how to make a living, and the kind that teaches you how to live. Even in my later years, I would draw on that mantra, Virtue and Excellence, and I would like to think that it had done me well.

I passed by the two statues on my way out, and I pressed two fingers to my lips as I did. It's a sort of ritual I do, a reminder, a symbol that I acknowledge and realize the meaning behind something I pass by. I did it by the Virtue and Excellence, and I do it by memorials, cathedrals, burials, all sorts of things.

The day was brisk and chilling, so I drew my overcoat tighter about myself and kept my hands to my pockets. I had a neckscarf stowed in my messenger's bag, but I had left my gloves in there too, and I didn't want to expose my hands to the biting cold, so I made do. On the way to the tavern, I passed by a newsboy, and I quickly exchanged two coins with him, one Civic and a fifty Spur, for a copy of the week's Tattler, which I kept tucked between my arm and side.

After a brief fifteen minute walk, I was at the Wandering Souls. It was my roost of choice at the time. I had become a sort of regular there, because it had everything I wanted in a resting place. It wasn't crowded, the music was alluring but not overbearing, and I could order a cup of amaretto without having my arm gnawed off of me. The Souls was a rustic sort of tavern, but not run down. The owner, Marten, was a quiet man, much unlike any other tavern owner in the city. I had the impression that he opened the place not to get rich, but to get old. He was only in his late forties, but from the quick conversations I had had with him over the past year, I had learned that he used to be a big merchant of some sort in Marasko.

I entered through the hardwood doors of the Wandering Souls and was greeted by low torchlight, cushioned chairs, and the musk of old cigars. In a corner there was a man, just about my age, strumming away on a lyre, the music slow and steady, his eyes closed shut the whole time. Including Marten by the counter, there were nine other people in the Souls, and I had recognized three of them.

One was Mr. Peters. He was with his wife, and they talked over two cocktails, concoctions Marten had learned how to make in Marasko.

The other was Old Russel. He was a lonely old man, and about a step or two from becoming a raging alcoholic. As he stood, however, he was doing okay, and he gave the Souls good business.

The third was Mattias. He was my friend from the dormitory and a fellow student of the arcane in the Academy. He was a year ahead of me in terms of the courses he was taking, but he was good companion and a kindred spirit. He spotted me and shot me a smile and a wave. I smiled back, and he motioned for me to take a cushion next to him. I nodded. I had told Mattias about the Souls a few months back and he had become a sort of regular himself. I enjoy Mattias' company quite a bit, but after he had taken his own place in the Souls, I hushed up about my little roost. I like having my own place to just be.

Mattias sat by the torchlight and he was reading a hefty leatherbound book that I could only figure was for the Academy. The book looked old, dusty, and it was falling apart at the spine - all the marks of a book for the arcane. "Studying hard, then?" I asked as I took a seat.

"That's what the alcohol's for, my friend."

I chuckled and motioned for Marten to serve me the usual. "What's this week's lesson about?"

"Something applied, thank the Light." Mattias lifted the book to show me the cover. Its title was short and succint - "Conjure."

"A spell?"

"A spell, though a simple one I think." He dipped his little finger into his drink and dabbed it onto the table, leaving a small puddle of liquid. "Let's pretend you're here. In this puddle. You want to go up. Higher. What do you do?"

I rubbed my chin and mulled it over. "Not a flying spell, surely?"

"Not quite, but close."

"A rope trick of sorts?" I guessed.

"More impressive." He waved his right hand over the small puddle and kept his other off to the side as a sort of cautionary guide. With a steady stream of green sparks emanating from his fingertips, the small puddle of whiskey and tonic shook and sputtered before grouping to form a column of liquid, about two inches tall. He held it up for a solid second or two, before the stream of sparks gave way and the liquid fell back into a tiny puddle on the table again. "You form a water bridge!" he grinned, pleased with himself.

"Such a showoff," I teased.

"You only think so because you can't do it, my friend." He took a sip of his whiskey. "Give yourself a few months and your bridge will be three feet tall and made from the flowing water of the Mazares, I'll wager you."

"I'd take that wager," I replied.

Marten set a small glass of amaretto and ice on our table and I thanked him. I sat back on my cushion and took a long, deep sip of the sweet liqueur. The musician on the platform by the corner finished his song, and Mattias and I offered some applause, a consolation in a tavern of this size with such few people present. He eased into another song with a similarly slow and deliberate melody.

I opened my broadsheet.

"Reading some more of your fiction, my friend?" Mattias asked me.

"It's not fiction," I responded. "The Tattler has its own stories of the guilds and their contracts, but they don't just make the whole thing up. They have their sources and connections."

"Yeah?" Mattias' eyebrows were raised. "And says who?"

"The ten thousand people everyday who read it!" With nearly a million people in Ardoz, I realized that my point hadn't come across as I had hoped it would. "Besides, if they just blatantly lied about the guilds, I'm sure the guilds would have the Tattler taken down. Light knows they have the power."

"Ah, I don't think so, my friend. Your stories all paint the guilds in such glory, such greatness. Look, look." He poked at my copy of the Tattler. "This story. 'Risk and Sons Saves Alipoli Town from Roving Wyvern?' Lies, you know there must have been a few bags full of Royals when it comes to getting Risk on a contract."

"Ah Mattias, you're cherrypicking! Here, look at this one. 'Zealton Fails to Prevent Murder in Alcala.'" I pointed out another story printed on the front page. My eyes caught the name of the victim, George Fischer, and my eyes widened. I put down my cup of amaretto. "By the Three Hells," I swore. "That's my uncle."

"Your uncle?"

"I never knew him much, I grew up with my parents' friends, but yes. George Fischer." I read through the rest of the article. "In Alcala. My hometown. Three Hells."

"My friend, are you alright?"

"I am. Just surprised is all." I read on. The article painted my uncle as somewhat of a shut-in, a paranoid man in his middle age. He had hired two of Zealton's men to protect him for three weeks, but they too were killed.

"Does it say who killed him?"

"No suspect," I answered. "No clues, either, just that it was violent and quick."

"My condolences, my friend." Mattias looked awkward. In Tuskano, where he was from, death was solemn, sacred thing, meant only to be mourned with families. He knew that here, in Ardoz, I was without family. I had been without family my whole life.

"I'm sorry, Mattias, but I think I'll have to go back to the dormitory." I fished out four Civics from my pockets and gave it to him to pay Marten. "I just need to be alone for a while. I think that's the last blood relative I had."

"Of course, of course, my friend." He pocketed the coins. "My door will always be open if you need me."

"Much appreciated." I drew my overcoat around myself and slung my bag across my shoulder as I walked out of the Wandering Souls. I still held the copy of the Tattler under my arm. I'm not quite sure why, but I felt like it was my last, final connection to any semblance of a family member.

On my walk back to the dormitory, I kept expecting for a tear to form, or a wave of panic to draw over me, but none came. My breathing stayed steady, but very shallow - I was in a state of disbelief. My parents had died when I was little and they had given me to friends of theirs to raise, fellow farmers living by a nearby field. Over the years, I had aunts and uncles and cousins I had only met less than half a dozen times die out for various reasons, but only now did I realize that this uncle - this George Fischer - was my last relative. The last Fischer besides me.

I did not mourn nor did I panic, instead, an intense, lonely wave of isolation overcame me as I walked through the overcast Ardoz streets on the way back to my dormitory. Suddenly, I was alone in the world, though nothing had changed. I had only met this uncle twice in my life, once when I was small and another when I had just become a teenager, yet now I felt completely changed. Nothing was different. Nothing would be different. I would still go about finding my way in Ardoz, I would still write back to my foster parents in Alcala, I would still have my few handful of friends from the Academy. But somehow, I felt different.

It was a curious case of grief for me. I struggled to remember what I could of Uncle George. He was a tanner. He owned his own shop in the centre of Alcala. I knew that he changed his surname to Tanner, even, rather than Fischer, so as to drive more business to his trade. The people knew him as a George Tanner, though the Tattler referred to him as a Fischer. Odd.

Moreover, he had gathered the coin to hire two Zealton Haka men, even for a few weeks. Also quite odd, as even for a religious guild, hiring men from Zealton Haka for an extended period of time must have been two or three Royals a head, easily. That would have been a fortune for any tanner in the small city of Alcala.

I considered visiting Alcala and attending his funeral, but then I shook away the thought. I was living on what my foster parents had given me, and joining a caravan to take me from Ardoz to Alcala and back would just about use up all of my finances. Besides, I didn't have any family left in Alcala. His funeral would be for remembrance from his friends and wife exclusively.

I perished the thought. I only had the coin for the trip there, and nothing else.

I reached the student's dormitory. I nodded to the doorman, and entered the sandstone building. It was warm inside, at least, from the warmth of a hundred students studying by torchlight. The left wing housed the male students, and there I found myself by my door.

Most rooms in the dormitory were under lock and key. I have a habit of losing the most important things, however, and so I hired an older student of the arcane to inscribe a Locking rune on my door handle. He charged me a whole fifty Civics for the thing, but I obliged - the rune paid for itself in savings for locksmiths and time spent locked out of my room. I whispered my Command word, " _Deserar,"_ and a small speck of blue light sparked from the snap of my fingers. The rune on my door illuminated itself for a brief second, and I turned the knob and entered before the light died back down and locked itself.

My room was cramped, to say the least. It was dim with only light from the city streaming in from the window. I grabbed the box of flint and tinder I kept by the table next to the door, and with a scratch, I lit the torchlamp which I then set onto my study table. I was safe even with rolls and sheets of parchment strewn all across my desk as the lamp protected me from any stray cinders or embers.

I reclined on my mattress and kept my copy of the Tattler onto the bedside table.

With thoughts of my last blood relative swimming around my head, I closed my eyes and rested.


End file.
